The Dallas Stars Have Nothing Left to Lose

The only thing I’ll ever ask of you, gotta promise not to stop when I say

[Win]

***

When the Stars take the ice tonight, they’ll be playing in a Game 6 elimination game for the first time since last year’s Western Conference Final.

That one was a bit of a ceremonial game, one where the Stars were clearly spent after rallying behind Joe Pavelski to claw back from 3-0 to make it a series after Jamie Benn’s vicious cross-check on Mark Stone let things spin out of control. But the Knights finally got down to business to continue their domination of Dallas, and the Stars meekly accepted their fate in a 6-0 drubbing that was still less embarrassing than what had happened in Game 3.

The Stars are once again facing a 3-2 deficit against a team poised to battle for the Cup, and there’s a similar pall over this one. Dallas have scored three goals in the last two games, and their power play continues to look toothless against an Oilers team that is humming on all cylinders.

This is the point of the year where you talk about emotion, desperation, digging deep, and whatever other substitute for “try harder than they do” you can find. Coaches can’t manufacture that energy during morning skate, and they can only rarely inject it during the game with some screams and some glares. How hard a player skates, what reads they make, and how much effort they expend to win a board battle all come down to the decision the player makes when they’re up against another world-class hockey player trying to do the same thing they are.

Mavrik Bourque is coming into the lineup for his second-ever NHL game, which seems less crazy after a day when the Stars contemplated inserting Lian Bichsel for his first NHL game. Peter DeBoer has never been one to get frantic, as evidenced by the Stars’ methodical comeback against Vegas in the quarterfinals. But The Stars’ offense feels like a spear without a tip right now, so you can hardly blame him for breaking the Cedar Park glass in emergent conditions.

Edmonton, as you know, did something similar with Philip Broberg, bringing him in for the struggling Vincent Desharnais in order to give Cody Ceci some help. The results have been great, with Broberg yet to be on ice for a goal against in nearly 30 minutes of ice time. Broberg isn’t really a rookie anymore, having played parts of two prior seasons with the Oilers, but that hasn’t stopped the media from lauding Kris Knoblauch for waiting to do something about his team’s biggest flaw until he was down 2-1 in the Conference Final. So kudos, I guess?

Both teams will be trying their hardest tonight, and don’t you dare insinuate otherwise. But only one of them will have success to vindicate their efforts after the game. The bigger problem for Dallas isn’t a question of willpower, but the fact that right now, they are facing an Oilers team that has felt unbeatable for almost six straight periods. That’s an absurd thing to even say, given how much better Dallas looked than them after the second round, but here we are. Edmonton has been the better team for much of the series, and they fully deserve the lead they have, even if Jason Robertson’s two posts in Game 1’s overtime could’ve drastically changed the whole shape of this thing.

But if you want some encouragement that the Stars’ efforts might bear fruit, should their efforts merit it, let me say this: Despite the long periods of impotence from Dallas’s offence, Edmonton really hasn’t dominated them. They’ve generated more shots in the series, but the goals are even at 5v5, with each team having scored 11.

And that’s reflected in the shot locations, too, as you can see below. Both teams are managing to get to the netfront (with Edmonton doing so more effectively than Colorado or Vegas ever did), but Edmonton’s other shots are primarily coming from the Leon Draisaitl zone in the left circle and the right point (as you saw on their third goal Friday), with Dallas saving up their shots for the low slot, right circle, and the middle of the high point.

That modicum of parity is all well and good, of course, if you ignore how much stronger Edmonton have gotten in the last two games. Momentum may not carry over from game to game, but I think frustration can, and has. Dallas actually generated more of the dangerous chances against Edmonton on Friday, but most of that game in what was effectively garbage time, after the Oilers had piled up so many shots that it felt demoralizing, particularly with Dallas sitting at just six shots on goal halfway through a critical game 5. Not having the puck, and not generating much when you do have it (as in that utter funeral of a second period on Friday) is going to wear a team down. It’s hard to push when the other team keeps ragging you around the ice, forcing you to chase it. No cohesion comes out of that when the other team can just stay calm and protect the lead, then ask the best top line in hockey to manufacture some chances at will.

But for all that, the power plays have been the difference, and still could be. Dallas excelled early in this series by not taking bad penalties and generating some good chances on their end. That’s shifted badly, as Ryan Suter demonstrated in his second consecutive Western Conference Final with him in the wrong sort of spotlight, but it could also shift back.

If the Oilers could protect Cody Ceci, then the Stars should be able to protect Suter, too. He’s a useful piece on a third pairing, so long as he makes good decisions, and Dallas absolutely has the horses to figure out Edmonton’s penalty kill. One would think Dallas will have a big push for at least a portion of this game, and they need to make sure they capitalize on it if they want to force a Game 7.

And have we mentioned the goalies, by the way? Jake Oettinger is still the better goalie in this series, but Stuart Skinner has had the easier job of the two. As you saw last game, it’s easy to make “great saves” when all you have to do is show up, whereas Ty Dellandrea’s failure to get to a rebound on the penalty kill meant Oettinger’s efforts were all for naught. And so on, and so forth. Skinner deserves praise for his work in this series, given how shaky he’d been for much of this postseason. But as Igor Shesterkin just showed us, your goaltending can keep you in a series, but it can’t do everything for you. At some point, Dallas is going to have to be the better team on the other 194 feet of the ice.

***

Last year, the Stars lost to Vegas for a lot of reasons, but their goaltending was one of the biggest. From all appearances, Jake Oettinger was worn down, and his performance just wasn’t good enough to beat an outstanding Adin Hill despite the Stars’ actually generating a bit more than Vegas did, in all situations.

This year, Oettinger has been good enough, and often great. But the Stars’ skaters have not been dangerous enough, and that’s why Mavrik Bourque will be playing instead of Craig Smith or Ty Dellandrea.

Remember how Marchment-Duchene-Seguin was the Stars’ best line for a chunk of the early season? Well, there’s a reason that line has been broken up for a while now. Seguin has been great this series on the top line—arguably the Stars’ best player, in fact—but Duchene and Marchment just haven’t been factors for long stretches of this series.

Roope Hintz has returned from injury, but his first game has been his only threatening appearance of his three. Jason Robertson won the Stars a game in this series, but scorers tend to be streaky, and he’s back on the bad kind of streak right now.

Jamie Benn, Wyatt Johnston, and Logan Stankoven have been the Stars’ best line this series, no doubt. I really think Johnston has become their top center with Hintz fighting whatever he’s fighting, but that creates a dilemma: Do you break the Benn line up to insert Bourque and move Stankoven back up the lineup, as they’ve periodically done?

I don’t know. I would expect the lines to be only as stable as the score of the game, though. Dallas will need to be generating chances consistently, else they risk Edmonton continuing their constriction—a skill none of us really thought the Oilers had.

Hey, I’d also settle for another Radek Faksa miracle to match the one they got against Vegas in Game 7. It could happen.

***

Mike Heika wrote this morning about the Stars’ situation, but he also included something specifically noteworthy: Thomas Harley is leading the Stars (alongside Seguin) with a plus-8, and he also has not been called for a penalty this postseason (unlike Suter, who leads the team in PIM). No, Harley hasn’t been racking up goals, but he has also been far, far from the problem. The Stars’ defense continues to be a big strength, even with Chris Tanev being held together with duct tape and Gatorade at this point. It’s the other end of the ice where they’re struggling.

Dallas will look at the video and tweak some tactics, or remind their players of alternatives when Edmonton is prepared for option 1 or option 2. The Stars have to be not only more persistent, but more creative, and it’s tough to have your mind open when your fists are closed. Dallas has hurt themselves with some overpursuit and underprotection in this series.

Tactics are crucial, but they are the starting point or finishing blow for your offense, not the entire package. What it feels like, as fans, is that Dallas simply can’t back up their strategy with cohesive movement and coverage, leaving the players to make things up on the fly, which leads to a type of exhaustion wholly divorced from physical fitness.

DeBoer’s challenge now is to reinforce proper responses to Edmonton’s penalty kill and their defensive zone coverage in order to give Dallas easy options, saving their creativity for the most critical moments when they have Edmonton on their heels. Because trying to come up with a new plan in the face of elimination is the exact sort of desperation we’ve seen from the other guys in every series thus far.

This may be the last hockey game of the year, for Dallas. That’s not a fun thing to say, let alone to contemplate, but it doesn’t have to be. If the Stars can genuinely give it their best shot and come up short, I think a lot of people will be able to live with that. The playoffs are always a bit of a crapshoot, and Edmonton had the far easier path, just as Colorado did in their Cup run two years ago. But easier isn’t the same as easy, and the Stars still have a chance to make it difficult for the Oilers. And right now, that feels like it should be enough. Just make it interesting, eh?

That’s not a trite comment, either: the Stars have ended far too many of their recent playoff runs with clunkers. A 6-1 loss to the Blues in 2016. A flailing whisper of an offense that finally bowed out against St. Louis again in 2019. Jake Oettinger & [no] Company against Calgary in 2022, and the meltdown against Vegas last year. Only the Tampa Bay loss seemed less painful, if only because no one ever expected Dallas to make it anywhere close to Game 6 of a Cup Final at the start of those weird playoffs. But even that 2-0 loss to Tampa still felt hopeless, with the lightning out-Bownessing the Stars’ defensive structure to a stifling degree.

Maybe that’s always how it feels to get eliminated from the playoffs: like an injustice was done to you, or almost by you. Either you were just happy to be there at all (2014, 2020, 2022), or you feel like the team squandered an opportunity by falling flat on their faces (2016, 2019, 2023). This series, if Dallas can at least extend it, is something different. The Stars are one of the best teams in the league, fully deserving of their place in the final four. Edmonton has outflanked them for two games now, but things are far from over. If Dallas can simply shake the dark malaise that’s been infecting the viewing experience and push Edmonton back a few steps, it will be a lot easier to live with the result. But if the Stars lose three in a row with team that should be far too good to look like they’re out of gas and out of answers, that’s going to leave a really sour taste in the fanbase’s mouth.

Nobody is saying “just make it a good game and it’s okay if you lose,” to be clear. Winning is much better than losing! But right now, this series feels like it’s had lead weights tied to its feet, and the Oilers invested in some extra helium after Game 3. It’s time to see if Dallas can pull themselves out of a hole and back into this series. It could’ve ended sooner, but at this point, everyone deserves a Game 7 between these two teams. After all, who doesn’t want to be back in Dallas to see everyone’s favorite playoff character, “A.I. Guy”!

I was unaware that the Stars now had MCU Doctor Doom leading cheers but @MarkLazerus tells me this is “A.I. guy.” pic.twitter.com/Ce72mh5u8k

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) June 1, 2024